Staying Alive

Continuing my plan to watch every Sly Stallone movie in order, I come to Saturday Night Fever.

Plot In A Paragraph: In this sequel to Saturday Night Fever, former disco king Tony Manero (John Travolta) has left Brooklyn and lives in Manhattan. He stays in a cheap hotel and works as a dance instructor by day and as a waiter at a dance club on a night, trying to succeed as a professional dancer on Broadway. The breakaway from his Brooklyn life, family and friends seems to have matured Tony and refined his personality, represented by his diminished accent and his avoidance of alcohol and swear words. However, certain things have not changed, as with his most recent girlfriend, who's a dancer and also the singer of a band. He feels free to pursue other women, but gets very jealous if someone looks at her too long.

Stallone has Travolta looking the heat he ever looked, the movie movies at a good pace and is entertaining enough, while not getting close to the first movie. Despite a critical mauling, this was one of the 1983 top ten most successful films at the box-office.

To date this is the only movie Sly has directed, that he didn't star in. Which I think is a shame, as he is a talented director.

The original writer of Saturday Night Fever Norman Wexler gets a co-writer credit for the sequel.

Staying Alive was directed and co-written by Sylvester Stallone. The story owes a debt to A Chorus Line. Some of the clunky dialogue and scenes are likely to be the fault of Stallone.

However Stallone also got John Travolta into shape. Here he looks like a dancer with rippling muscles.

The story has moved on six years. Tony Manero is trying to hit it big as a bit part player in Broadway. He gets a long list of rejections and struggles on with the support of his girlfriend.

An abrasive relationship with the star of a new Broadway show, Laura (Finola Hughes) has not gone unnoticed by its director. Tony might have a girlfriend but he hits on Laura if it might help his career.

Travolta presents an older Tony Manero but he is still immature, shallow and self centred. Manero has a rawness and streetwise that attracts the attention of the director of the new Broadway show.

The film is let down by a thin uninvolving plot and too many songs that just does not fit in with the film. Whereas those Bee Gees songs became classics in Saturday Night Fever, they just are forgettable here. I thought Vince DiCola's composition blended better.

The real low point was the opening night of the campy Broadway show 'Satan's Alley' that Manero gets a starring role opposite with Laura. Conceptually is should had been reworked, maybe something more disco themed.

Travolta understands Manero but the film felt too different from Saturday Night Fever. Staying Alive did well at the box office when it was released but it was critically lambasted. It was a big task for it to even equal the original's success which had entered public consciousness in a big way. Looking at the movie again it does fit in well with the MTV aesthetics of the 1980s but it lacks the grittiness.

Seeing this film on TV again the other night made me wonder how amazing the human body is.... or more specifically John Travolta's body.

In Michael and Get Shorty he had a tremendous girth for the character's roles yet the films before and after Phenomenon and Broken arrow show a different size. and then we have the extreme end of the scale in this film. Sly Stallone trained Travolta for 3 months to get him into the rippling muscled fat free condition he displays in this film.

It just goes to show you that your fat levels aren't really THAT predetermined by birth and genetics afterall. All you have to to is be committed to attaining a the shape you want to be. Travolta can be slim, medium or large build, muscled, fat or average depending on the film role his ability in this regard is second only to Robert deNiro of raging Bull and Cape fear physique abilities.

Travolta wil never be out of work while he is able to mold himself into his characters. The charcter of Tony would not have been believeable in this film in any shape other than the one depicted by John Travolta in this film. he got it spot on --- in appearance, line delivery and overall feeling!

7/10

Oh! So hokey! So bad! Tony Manero gets a job on the world's worst Broadway musical where two soap opera actresses catfight over his affections. Did I mention that all the music is by Frank Stallone? Of course this is because Sylvester Stallone directed, but Sly also keeps things in the family way by plopping Mama Jackie Stallone headbands on every friggin' chick in the film. The musical seems to involve a lot of dancers writhing about in "hell" (Drowning in dry ice, wearing Jackie headbands and listening to Frank, so there is at least a few scant shreds of reality fluttering here.), basting Tony in baby oil and tearing at his loincloth. This goes on non-stop for about the last 20 minutes, except for the moment when the director comes back waving his scarf at Tony and hollering "What is going on out there?" (Yeah, man, I was wondering too.) Still, if you're a fan of Travolta in his liberally greased and half-naked physical prime, you might derive a modicum of enjoyment from this. (I didn't. My mom did.) Great basket shot at the end, though.

Not good, but not as bad as it is made out to be.

Plot is thin, but the behind-the-scenes look at a Broadway dance show is interesting. Far too much time is spent on the actual show though, making you think that the whole movie may as well have been one big recording of a dance show.

Music is kind of cheesy, specially the music in the Broadway production.

Acting is so-so. Cynthia Rhodes gives probably the only convincing performance. John Travolta is his usual one-dimensional self and Finola Hughes is irritating.